So, is it necessary for hotels and restaurants to manage their online reputation and develop a reputation management plan to respond to online review comments?
Yes, it is almost obligatory for an owner to monitor and optimize what is said about them. Online reputation management plays a very big role in your overall reputation – your brand is determined by what your guests say it is.
Online Reputation Management allows hotels and restaurants to keep track of what is being said about their brand online. Furthermore, hotels will be able to listen and engage with new guests. With this hotels/restaurants can now, get their fingers on the pulse on what travelers and guests are saying about their brand or competitor brands. Online Reputation Management is more than just filtering through negative mentions about your hotels and restaurants to improve their name; it is about using constructive criticism to improve your service delivery and engaging with positive mentions to create loyal brand ambassadors.
Reputation Management is still in its infancy, but changes in the ways traveler’s research about trips/make decisions and share experiences are making it essential to long-term sustainability. That calls for a formalized, systemic approach: integrating reputation management principles and practices into daily operations and culture.TripAdvisor, which was launched in 2000, is now the world’s largest online travel review website. While the number of user-generated reviews may be daunting for hotel marketing teams, Payea claims that studies have shown that travelers not only pay attention to customer reviews, but also are making their decisions based on management responses. In fact, they want to hear the property owner’s or manager’s side of a negative review. Tripadvisor claims to be the most popular and largest travel community in the world, with more than 32 million members and over 75 million reviews and opinions of hotels, restaurants, attractions and other travel-related businesses.

Some of the benefits to be on www.tripadvisor.com -
- You are aware about what is being said online about your business.
- It proves to your potential customer you care about your business and that you want them to have a pleasant experience.
- You can track your performance and see how you rank against your competitors.
- Offers excellent and free business owners resources online to help with getting more reviews, best practices including how to respond to reviews, links and badges for your website/email newsletter, and content ideas.Some of the disadvantages to be on www.tripadvisor.com –
- One main disadvantage is that there seems to be no control over who posts reviews.
- Some hotel and restaurant owners have experienced threats from customers to pay them so they would not post bad reviews.
- Another disadvantage that hoteliers cannot control is how people will perceive the reviews.
Few other sites who are similar to www.tripadvisor.com for hotels and restaurants –
- www.igougo.com
- www.facebook.com & Google plus for Business Free Ebook here >>
- www.frommers.com

Well in the end if things don’t go according to plan or you start getting too many negative reviews you can always hire an online reputation manager and take heed in what the reviews are saying and try to improve on those aspects of your hotel/restaurant.

That’s a great question Ella. It all comes down to responsibility (the ability to respond) If someone writes a damning review it’s important to reply with a non-defensive reply. Address all the issues concerned and talk about how this will be combated in the future. Customers like to hear that you are human and accept that mistakes can be made. However they also want to feel assured that you’ve learnt from the feedback and have addressed the issues. Like any good story it needs a beginning (issues raised) middle (what you’ve put in place to address the issue) and an end (how the experience has improved your overall service). Thank you for your comment Ella. I hope this answers your question.

Hi Christian, Being an avid user of Tripadvisor got me thinking about the impact reviews had on online reputations. I wanted top know more so I researched the topic and wrote the article. With all the changes Google has implemented over the last year, reputation and social signals of all kinds will play a big part in off-page SEO. Something for us all to be aware of if we take our online reputation seriously. I hope this has answered your question Christian. Thanks for your comments. Always appreciated.